As for children, we tend to judge them in relation to other children. A child can be relatively smart, but not smart. For example, if you want to insult the intelligence of an adult, you say that they display “child-like naivety”.
people who have not been educated on the subjects you mention
Typically one picks these things up. Very few people have actually been educated in “not being easily fooled”, for example.
possibly because of a considered belief in fideism
Wikipedia: “Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths”
If you think that blindly believing something is a good way to get to the truth, then in my book you are an idiot. “Not smart” isn’t even strong enough.
people who self-deceive on some level, or avoid thinking about the subject of religion very hard, in order to achieve a good quality of life, after having established that they consider the quality of life their top priority
This is a good one. But if you realize that you’re deceiving yourself, but not that this weakens your belief in the thing you are deceiving yourself about, then you must be pretty slow, really?! Sure, it’s great if you can get this to work, but if you can get it to work then you have to be a bit dumb.
When I am inclined to call someone childish, it’s because I want to express an opinion about their maturity, not their intelligence. Smart people can be immature and mature people can be pretty dim.
Some people really seem to be able to self-deceive without obviously weakening the belief they’re deceiving themselves about. It’s not a skill I have, but I shouldn’t assume that no one has it. I don’t think it’s obvious at all that these people are necessarily dumb.
Strongly believing X, whilst at the same time believing that you are deceiving yourself into believing X and ignoring the evidence, with the background assumption that randomly formed beliefs are not likely to be true, is a logical contradiction.
As for children, we tend to judge them in relation to other children. A child can be relatively smart, but not smart. For example, if you want to insult the intelligence of an adult, you say that they display “child-like naivety”.
Typically one picks these things up. Very few people have actually been educated in “not being easily fooled”, for example.
Wikipedia: “Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths”
If you think that blindly believing something is a good way to get to the truth, then in my book you are an idiot. “Not smart” isn’t even strong enough.
This is a good one. But if you realize that you’re deceiving yourself, but not that this weakens your belief in the thing you are deceiving yourself about, then you must be pretty slow, really?! Sure, it’s great if you can get this to work, but if you can get it to work then you have to be a bit dumb.
When I am inclined to call someone childish, it’s because I want to express an opinion about their maturity, not their intelligence. Smart people can be immature and mature people can be pretty dim.
Some people really seem to be able to self-deceive without obviously weakening the belief they’re deceiving themselves about. It’s not a skill I have, but I shouldn’t assume that no one has it. I don’t think it’s obvious at all that these people are necessarily dumb.
Well it depends what you mean by “dumb”.
Strongly believing X, whilst at the same time believing that you are deceiving yourself into believing X and ignoring the evidence, with the background assumption that randomly formed beliefs are not likely to be true, is a logical contradiction.